Tunisia commerce union ‘now not accepts’ president’s agenda | Information

The highly effective UGTT says it can oppose Kais Saied’s reforms and defend freedoms ‘no matter the price’.

Tunisia’s highly effective labour union has issued its clearest problem to President Kais Saied but, rejecting his political and financial agenda and saying it won’t tolerate what it referred to as a risk to democracy.

“We now not settle for the present path due to its ambiguity and particular person rule, and the disagreeable surprises it hides for the destiny of the nation and democracy,” Noureddine Taboubi, chief of the Tunisian Common Labour Union (UGTT), stated in a speech to 1000’s of supporters on Saturday.

“We won’t hesitate to defend rights and freedoms no matter the price,” he added.

Saied shut down the elected parliament final yr and moved to rule by decree earlier than writing a new constitution that was handed mid-year in a referendum with low turnout, establishing elections for a brand new, weakened legislature.

The president’s critics have denounced his strikes as a coup and have held repeated street protests. Saied has stated his actions have been crucial to save lots of Tunisia.

The parliamentary vote is ready to happen on December 17 however most political events are boycotting the ballot, faulting procedures the president has decreed together with bringing the electoral fee below his purview.

Different electoral modifications comparable to ending the general public financing of campaigns will even make it troublesome for ladies to run for workplace, the United States-based group Human Rights Watch warned.

Taboubi, on Saturday, described the vote as having “no color and style,” and the product of a structure that doesn’t get pleasure from nationwide unanimity.

Although it repeatedly voiced concern, the one-million-member union had beforehand avoided brazenly opposing the president’s agenda, apart from a strike in the course of the yr over wages and spending cuts.

The new government appointed by Saied in October lately angered the UGTT by proposing subsidy cuts and the restructuring of state-owned corporations, in a push for an IMF bailout wanted to avert nationwide chapter.

Final month, the union referred to as for a normal strike within the area of Sfax, a day after a demonstrator died from inhaling tear fuel fired to disperse protests in opposition to the reopening of a landfill website.

It demanded that the perpetrators be held accountable.

The UGTT has confirmed able to paralysing the economic system with strikes that closed airports, public transport, ports and authorities workplaces.